Leaders
by aaliona
Summary: Cho has a thing for leaders. Cedric and Harry are both wonderful, but she can't have them both. For The Girls of Harry Potter competition by MidnightEmberMisery


Cho had a thing for leaders.

She met Cedric as he was explaining Quidditch plays to his friends in the hall. She had said, "Big talk, but can you play?" Then she giggled and walked on. He snatched it up like the Seeker he was and followed her.

Harry was different. She had done nothing to coax his adoration and, despite her ties to Cedric, her attraction for Harry bloomed. Her nightly dreams would flip back and forth between Cedric and Harry, with the occasion neurotic yet arousing scene involving them both.

She watched them both go through the first challenge. She wanted to bawl as each of them was almost killed in his own _special_ way. Neither gave up, and neither seemed to hesitate for a second. They both stood tall and proud, the way a leader should.

Cedric had asked her to the Yule Ball, and she'd been ecstatic, but part of her hoped Harry would ask her to dance.

When he asked her to go _with him_ to the dance, she didn't know what to do. "I'm sorry. I really am," she stuttered. It was the truth too. More than a tiny fraction of Cho wanted to blow off Cedric and go with Harry; however, the rest of her refused to leave Cedric or let him down in the tiniest of ways.

It felt so right to arrive at the ball on Cedric's arm, where she obviously belonged. The envy-green flames that licked at her insides upon seeing Harry with Parvati only reminded her of what he was: a test to see if she could remain faithful to Cedric. And faithful she was.

Cho could feel Harry's eyes on her all night as she and Cedric danced on and on. He was a wonderful dancer and stopped to take a break whenever she needed it. She never even had to ask. Cedric would simply lead her off the floor, seat her delicately, and whisk away to the refreshment table.

Still, a small urge made her glance around for Harry anytime Cedric was gone. He was not hard to keep tabs on, as he spent the night sitting with Ron Weasley. Parvati left almost immediately, she noted with a smidgen of satisfaction.

At the end of the night, Cedric lead her back to Ravenclaw tower and kissed her hand before departing. She had smiled and told him good night. No stolen kisses or sneaking away for them. Oh no, they were responsible. Cedric was a safe match.

When Dumbledore informed Cho that she was the most precious person to Cedric, she could hardly believe it. Harry had his best friend, Viktor Krum had Hermione Granger (funny, she had not known Hermione was anything more than a ball date), and Fleur Delacour had her little sister. Cho knew anyone could have been brought to the castle to fill her place, Fleur's sister proved that, and it meant so much to her that she meant so much to Cedric. She'd started crying.

After the challenge, she had asked Cedric about it in a secret hallway. He had smiled and said, "I love you." As she replied that she felt the same and kissed him for the first time, Cho swore to forget her feelings about Harry. So what if his person was his male best friend (it was always possible, though _very_ unlikely, that he was gay)? So what if he and his Yule Ball date meant nothing to each other? So what if she had been feeling his gaze on her all year? None of it mattered because Cedric loved her. They were meant to be and she could not let him down by going after Harry.

Cho was good on her word. She purposely avoided Harry in the halls and refused to look at him in class. At night, she thought of Cedric before she went to bed, causing her dreams about Harry to almost completely stop. All her attention and energy went into schoolwork and Cedric.

A teeny tiny portion of her did notice the Potter Stinks badges and how Harry reacted to them. To put it simply, he didn't. She listened to Cedric beg his friends not to wear them – to no avail – and watched Harry ignore them. Which was harder: to stand up for another or refuse to fall down?

The answer did not matter. Cedric was the perfect boyfriend and always had been. He showered her with attention, constantly praised her, and literally came looking for her when his friends started discussing which girls at Hogwarts were "the hottest."

Hogsmeade visits were great. She and Cedric were in love. It was time for that next step.

The night before the last task, they finally had sex. Cedric transfigured a classroom into a honeymoon suite and they stayed there all night. It hurt at first, in a way Cho had never imagined. Afterwards Cedric held her and kissed her. As she was falling asleep, he awakened her.

"Cho," he whispered.

"Mmm?" she responded, jousting herself awake.

"I have something to ask you, baby."

"What is it?" she asked as she turned to face him.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

She'd said yes of course. He was Cedric Diggory and she was Cho Chang. They were meant to be together. Yet, as she drifted to sleep in his arms, she thought of Harry and how disappointed he would be when he found out.

Cedric did not have a ring yet, as he had not planned on asking her that night, but that only meant she did not have to answer any questions the next day.

…

He died. They made things as safe as they could and he still died. At the hands of Voldemort, no less.

Cho cried. She cried and cried and cried. It was horrifying to think the man she loved, the man she was _engaged to_, was dead. It seemed unreal.

Part of her wondered if it was a punishment for her. She had loved him, but not with all her heart. Despite the numbered of times she had told herself to snap out of it, she still wanted Harry. She had lusted after him and said yes to Cedric with him on her mind. This was her reward.

She did not tell anyone about her and Cedric. His father patted her on the back and told her Cedric had loved her. She knew. She knew more than he did. She could only imagine how happy it would make Mr. Diggory to know she would have been his daughter-in-law. He probably fancied to himself that much already. Cho did not have a ring, and her heart had not been entirely his. That in itself made her feel like she did not deserve the extra sympathy. She was already his girlfriend, the girl he loved. The sympathy given to his fiancé would be too much for her to bear.

The school year got over, and she spent her summer in morning. All too quickly, her fifth year was starting. She still cried herself to sleep thinking of Cedric, but she was starting to move on. People expected her to.

Cho heard straight from Hermione Granger that Harry was starting his own Defense Against the Dark Arts class. She went, on the pretext of wanting to learn more than Umbridge was teaching. She had a feeling everyone in the room could see beneath that and knew the real reason she was there. She watched him in the front of the room, and sighed with relief as he refused to talk about Cedric's death. She could not handle that.

Harry was a wonderful teacher. Even Neville Longbottom was learning. Cho could not ignore the way Harry was making her feel again. Her heart had frozen after Cedric died. When Harry came close, and helped hold her wand just so, it made her heart flutter the way Cedric had. Harry stood in the same tall, commanding way that Cedric had. He talked in the same manner Cedric had. He persuaded and cheered the same way Cedric had. They were so alike that it almost made her cry.

Then he kissed her. It felt so lovely. Once again, she felt guilty. When she was with Cedric and thought of Harry, she felt like she was betraying him. Now she felt like she was betraying them both.

Cedric had been dead less than a year, and here she was kissing Harry Potter. She could only imagine what the press would have to say about that, much less her parents.

Meanwhile, as much as she was enjoying Harry's kiss, she wanted desperately to pretend it was Cedric. Oh, what she would give for one last kiss with Cedric!

This was not, however, her last kiss with Cedric; it was her first kiss with Harry. It was wrong to think it was anything but.

Then she started crying.

They were too alike.

It took a few weeks and one Hogwarts visit for her to decide it would never work.

Cho had been attracted to Harry the same she had been attracted to Cedric. The same qualities were drawing her to each of them. That was the reason she had been unable to choose completely the year before.

She could not love Harry without thinking of Cedric. They were just too alike, and she needed a fresh start.

Maybe another leader was not the way to go.


End file.
